Author Spotlight

L. M. Montgomery (1874-1942)
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on Prince Edward Island to parents Clara and Hugh in 1874. Her mother died of tuberculosis twenty-one months later, and her father moved away from Prince Edward Island, so Maud went to live with her mother’s parents, where she was strictly raised. She later attended Prince of Wales College, and became a teacher upon her graduation. In 1811 she married a pastor, Ewan Macdonald, whom she was married to until her death in 1942 and with whom she had two surviving sons. Maud, as she was known by her friends and relations, wrote her first book, the celebrated Anne of Green Gables, in 1908 during a period of time spent with her then-widowed grandmother. It was followed the next year by its sequel, Anne of Avonlea, and she continued to write stories featuring Anne Shirley and her family until 1939, when she published Anne of Ingleside — the series not having been written in chronological order. Despite the fame of the Anne series, however, she also wrote a great many other novels which are much less well-known, including The Story Girl, its sequel The Golden Road, the Emily series, A Tangled Web, and Jane of Lantern Hill.